


Identity

by TitaniaSchnee



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:58:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4267635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TitaniaSchnee/pseuds/TitaniaSchnee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Occasionally, she imagines what it would be like if she had married Slaine. If she had married Inaho. Would the three of them be together?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Identity

As the empress of Vers, she has much more obligations, expectations, rules to follow… Sometimes, when her pressures are the heaviest, she wishes for freedom – to be with her two dearest friends without any animosity in the world. A dream come true.

Occasionally, Inaho comes to visit her on political business. Due to his military standing and involvement in the war, the United Forces had recognized him as an international trustee. In short moments of privacy, he tells her stories of her childhood friend but they don’t always have happy endings. Usually, they are left ambiguous as they teeter between gratitude and bitterness. Stability and depression. Rarely in the middle. She prays for his wellbeing. Both of them.

When they do end happily, however, her smiles last the entire day.

_“Your…”_

She can’t go visit Slaine freely. Her schedule is often packed, and her husband bears ill will. It saddens her deeply. Her husband… Her husband exists. If she were to go meet another man, any man at all, dead or alive, in a manner other than professional, the public would not respond with favour. She must be pure and dedicated.

_“… -ness…”_

Occasionally, she imagines what it would be like if she had married Slaine. If she had married Inaho. Would the three of them be together? Would she be empress or an average Martian girl, living on Earth among Terrans?

“Your Highness!”

A call snaps her out of her thoughts with a slight jolt.

“Eddelrittuo…”

“He… Mr. Kaizuka would like to meet you in private. Here…” her handmaid hesitates. The two have met in private before but there’s always a sense of danger in it. As if they would be found and denounced on claims of adultery.

It’s about lunchtime. When politicians tend to meet and discuss their plans, and therefore, a strange time for him to visit. He usually calls her after formal meetings, under the guise of needing further information.

“It is fine. Let him in.”

With a nod, the servant allows his entrance. She hears the sounds of an opening door, footsteps, and then the door closing. Within seconds, she’s alone. With Kaizuka Inaho. Her servant had departed, and she is alone with a man who isn’t her husband.

They share a couch, although far away on opposite ends, and begin with small talk. Simple things like “How are you” and “How was your day.” Eventually, he reaches into his dress shirt pocket under his over-sized sweater. Out comes small photographs. Square-shaped and petite.

“I took these while he wasn’t paying attention. He would throw a fit if he knew.”

In his hand are three pictures of Slaine. One of him sullenly eating Inaho’s homemade lunch. One of him becoming humorously irritated over a chess move. One of him sleeping peacefully in bed – slightly drooling.

He tells her stories surrounding the photos, and they all make her giggle. The two unconsciously move closer together. They look like parents engulfed in their child’s baby pictures.

Her eyes move up, only to fully meet Inaho’s physical features. His hair. His skin tone. His eyepatch. It is then that she realizes how close they are. Close enough to touch. So very close. She finds herself enchanted, unable to turn her eyes away. In his appearance. In his voice.

_Drip. Drip._

Inaho looks at her to find tears. And he understands. It’s one of the things he truly does. _Happiness. Relief. What could have been…_

He moves slowly to hold her – reassuringly and lovingly.

The empress is sobbing softly in his arms.

_The empress…_

She can no longer be Princess Asseylum.

She can no longer be Seylum.

Soon, she must return to her more refined self. Ruler and wife. But for now, she wants to be average and another man’s lover.

But she can’t bring herself to kiss him.


End file.
